Greetings everyone. Well its been almost two years since Daana and I began recording events Star Wars roleplay on Second Life and this is our 1000th article. It really has been a wild ride, with ups and down, but overall we hope that we’ve brought some entertainment. Our only goals have been to create RP for ourselves, for others and to record what happens. It has never been our intention to cause drama and hopefully we’ve kept pretty much to that over the years.

As for what else has transpired, GNN was actually part of a real life study on virtual worlds, led independently by a third party. The results being about to be printed. Behavioural scientists are studying what effect real world type institutions have in a virtual world. The study about GNN was specific to the effect a virtual news organisation devoted to the virtual world would have on the players. The researches, who were in world studying player behaviours, concluded that the virtual counterparts of real world institutions had the same effect on their virtual brethren that the physical ones have on the real world. In this case, under my understanding, it concluded a virtual news organisation went along a unification of otherwise divergent RP and Sims. We were proud to learn the study would be used in other research and in classrooms at other universities.

Any ways, I would just like to say that me and Daana have really had a good time making these stories. It’s provided us a way to meet people we would have never met before, had an outlet for our creativity, and provided with a lot of time of enjoyment. Hopefully we’ll continue to have fun and hope you continue to enjoy our efforts. Thank you everyone!

Hello, a rare out of character post to wish to everyone happy holidays.

Reporters in the snow

Hopefully we’ll continue to write down articles with your stories the next year and we’re glad to help the community to get stick together.

We recently heard again the corny old song “SWRP is dying”, this year with a new refrain about The Old Republic game. Some people may leave, or be less present, some people will join back, including with the ideas they’ve got from another game. The recent event in Uvena Prime and the further one with the Yuuzhan Vong attack show the community can unite and play together. Paradoxically when hearing the announced death, we had the peak of articles to write down, up to four one day. This is why we renew our offer for the players to contribute to Galactic News and propose to help to take part of other community oriented projects.

On year ago (March 3rd) Daana and Rakiko had their first reportage. The idea behind was to have a decent reason to explore worlds and possibly talk to the people without been seen as enemies by the local faction. Articles were first evoked, with few lines in the SWRP wiki, then as the actor’s interest grew. The wiki and the notices had both drawbacks, so we moved toward a blog format. This allowed a proper formatting, an easier search, illustrations and archives.

To sum up the major events having shook the SWRP Galaxy (more than one group or sim involved) during the last year:

War between the People’s Galactic Alliance and the Galactic Empire. Followed by the fading of the military faction of the Empire, and a bit later, by the withdrawal of the PGA from the public affairs.

Invasion of Ruusan by the Sith Empire, and short occupation of the Jedi facilities. Few time after it was released, Ruusan is struck independently by a stellar disaster.

Vjun and Kamino found the Galactic Dominion, they were shortly followed by many other worlds. Mandalorians provoke their withdrawal from Nal Hutta.

Mandalorians and Tetan Empire start a long war against the Sith Empire, backed by the Galactic Dominion. The Sith adopt a defensive posture and prevent any progress of the attackers.

Sith from several factions (Roon, Mygeeto…) raid Yavin 4

Taking profit of the move of the Grand Army for Kathalon, Mandalorians intrude in Bakura which provokes the exile of the Royal Family. The new regime is not recognized by other systems until the GAR comes back and a new prime minister is named.

The Galactic Dominion progressively changes its allegiance and become the Galactic Alliance. The Sith worlds quit them. They gain new enemies without being able to forge new alliance and their influence lowers.

The crimes syndicates start to agree and struggle against the Hutts, then against the Galactic Alliance. They will gain a preeminence on Tatooine.

System groups. The Jedi worlds behind the Galactic Senate of the New Republic, other behind the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

Plus countless of group specific events you can read in the archives or learn from people’s memory.

I’ll also like to take profit of this article to pay homage to the sims, their owners and their builders which allowed the RP. About 70 are listed in the “Location” category of this blog. These remained open during this full year: Bakura, Bespin, Byss, Dantooine, Endor’s Moon, Kesh, Nar Shaddaa, New Holstice, Onderon, Ossus, Ruusan, Taris, Yavin 4, Zonama Sekot.

If you want to take part of Galactic News, either as field reporter, local correspondent or informant, feel free to contact us. Other possibilities are open, like opening a faction biased news magazine. We could assist you if we have the resources for, and you’re doing it on a positive and fun spirit.

The team of Galactic News wishes Happy Holidays to every member of the community. We thank you for the warm welcome we received and hope you’ll enjoy the upcoming year.

As it’s a traditional moment to tell stories, we’ll tell you the brief history of the Galactic News in SWRP, followed, as a gift by our encouragement to work with us or create your own community project.

Feel free to use the comments if you wished to add few words of your own.

History of the Galactic News in Second Life

Telling stories

Originally, in April 2010, it was planed to write down a simple abstract of the articles, or short dispatches for the Second Life groups, but keeping archiving them. They can still be seen in the SWRP Wiki. Then we transcribed some interview, but the preferred form shortly became a synthesis of the discussions the reporters had with witnesses. The wiki appearing too limited, we moved to a blog format, which was even more justified we had already about 70 articles to move and planed to continue.

The tone of the Galactic News Network was deliberately to remain neutral, and this is one of the reason it’s based on Taris, represented in Second Life with one of the oldest non-aligned sim. Since, we met many people on almost every places and were pleasantly surprised to hear most of them had a small or a larger story to tell and communicate to the community.

Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to write an article for every topic we had, sometimes by lack of time, sometimes the informations needed to be completed by third party we never meet in due time. And we were simply unaware of many scene happening all around of the Galaxy.

Make your own

We’re cheering external contributions if they match the blog style. They’re as many occasions to enhance the role-play experience in the SWRP community. Writing news-style articles isn’t however the only way, neither is writing articles in the way we do. Why not writing a character’s memoirs, history books or enlightening the events in a faction point of view? We’ll find wonderful other community projects uprise and grow with time.

Be prepared for a long run effort, don’t feel discouraged by lack of acknowledgment at the start. Do it for the community and not only for yourself.

Be original, find something missing in the community. Why running a project similar than another while you could simply request joining or help with your work and energy?

Be positive. It’s about role-play, people enter to have fun, not to read complaints.

Count on yourself for doing the work. If other join you, it’s wonderful, but it should be able to run with a limited crew.

Feel free to ask us for morale or technical assistance. If you’re not assured on your idea yet, the news format we use can be open enough to welcome several sorts of partner projects.